The inaugural ASEAN-GCC-China Summit, held in Kuala Lumpur on 27 May 2025, marked a pivotal moment in international diplomacy by establishing the groundwork for an emerging trilateral framework between three influential regions: Southeast Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and China. Each region brings vast economic power, strategic value, and a shared vision of multipolar cooperation rooted in mutual respect and pragmatic engagement. This summit signaled not only the strengthening of existing bilateral ties but also the evolution of trilateral collaboration, with implications for global trade, development, and geopolitics against the backdrop of President Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs and withdrawal from international organizations and agreements.
Building a Trilateral Framework
The summit united the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and China to institutionalize growing cooperation. Over the past decade, China has deepened its relations with both ASEAN and the GCC through trade, infrastructure, and diplomacy. Similarly, ASEAN and GCC members have expanded ties, particularly in trade and energy.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim—whose country is currently chair of ASEAN and hosted the summit—told a news conference that the US remains an important market while also noting that ASEAN, the GCC, and China collectively represent a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $24.87 trillion with a total population of about 2.15 billion. He described the summit as a “platform of mutual convergence”—not a geopolitical alliance. The emphasis was on practical outcomes: advancing free trade, expanding green and digital cooperation, and forging economic corridors. With a combined GDP nearing US$25 trillion and over two billion people, this trilateral bloc has the potential to influence global geoeconomic realignments.
The summit took place amid Washington’s 90-day pause on tariffs in the U.S.-China tit-for-tat tariff war—an indication that the global trade landscape remains volatile, encouraging other major economies to diversify partnerships. China and some ASEAN exporters—including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam—have been among the worst-hit globally by Trump’s tariffs, given their significant trade surpluses with the US. Meanwhile, US tariffs on ASEAN and GCC states range from 10% on Singapore and the six GCC states to 49% on Cambodia.
New agreements
The summit followed the completion of ASEAN–China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) 3.0 negotiations, the second update of their 2002 free trade agreement, which now includes the digital and green economies. It also marked the official launch of FTA negotiations between the GCC and Malaysia.
As per their joint statement released on May 27, the participating countries agreed to the following key areas of agreement:
Free Trade: Commitment to finalize the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area 3.0 and conclude negotiations on the China-GCC FTA
Currency Cooperation: Exploration of local currency use and cross-border payment systems to reduce reliance on the US dollar.
Belt and Road Initiative: Expansion of infrastructure connectivity, including digital platforms and logistics corridors.
Digital Economy: Development of a trilateral digital economy framework, including cooperation in artificial intelligence, e-commerce, fintech, and cybersecurity.
Energy Security: Collaboration on global energy market stability and innovation in clean energy technologies.
Food and Agriculture: Plans for enhanced cooperation in food security and sustainable agriculture.
People-to-People Exchanges: Strengthening cultural, educational, and tourism exchanges across the three regions.
A History of Strategic Growth
The ASEAN-China partnership is the most developed and long-standing component of the emerging trilateral structure. Since 1996, when China became an official dialogue partner, ties have expanded significantly. China is now part of ASEAN Plus Three, alongside Japan and South Korea, and a key member of the ASEAN Regional Forum. By 2023, trade between China and ASEAN had reached US$911.7 billion, with both sides serving as each other’s largest trading partners for four consecutive years.
China-GCC ties have also intensified. The inaugural China-GCC summit occurred in December 2022 during Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia. By 2022, their bilateral trade had surged to US$316 billion.
Meanwhile, ASEAN-GCC engagement, though younger, has steadily progressed from early ministerial discussions in the late 1980s to the first ASEAN-GCC Summit in Riyadh in 2023. A five-year cooperation roadmap and biennial summits were agreed upon, with the 2025 Kuala Lumpur summit representing a key milestone.
Challenges and Implications
The emerging ASEAN-GCC-China trilateral cooperation offers significant strategic advantages. Malaysia has played a pivotal role in shaping this framework, envisioning a strategic triangle that links ASEAN, the GCC, and China to build greater resilience and mutual support. While China’s formal position within the ASEAN-GCC structure is still evolving, its strong bilateral ties with both regions make full integration a realistic possibility. This growing institutional cooperation provides a valuable buffer against global geoeconomic shocks, allowing these partners to diversify dependencies and coordinate economic policies more effectively.
This trilateral alliance also presents a distinctive alternative model of global cooperation. Rooted in shared development objectives, pragmatic economic engagement, and a collective preference for non-interference, it draws on the unique strengths of each party: ASEAN’s pluralistic and consensus-based approach, the GCC’s financial capital and religious heritage, and China’s industrial scale and investment capacity. Together, they offer a vision of international collaboration that contrasts with Western-centric models.
For China, this trilateral engagement is an opportunity to bolster its image as a responsible global power committed to multilateralism and rules-based cooperation—an image that stands in contrast to the nationalist and protectionist tendencies of the current Trump administration. The trilateral framework thus serves diplomatic as well as economic objectives by showcasing China’s leadership in fostering global governance.
China’s economic imperatives also underscore the value of this partnership. During his address to the summit, Chinese Premier Li Qiang declared the benefits of creating an ASEAN–GCC–China free-trade area, which he suggested would become one of the world’s biggest interregional markets.
Given its continued reliance on exports, China faces pressure to secure alternative markets amid the risk of its products being priced out of the U.S. market due to tariffs. Emerging economies in the Global South, including ASEAN members, have increasingly absorbed Chinese exports—a trend accelerated by the U.S.-China trade war and tit-for-tat tariff dispute. However, much of this trade eventually flows back to Western markets through intermediary “connector economies,” limiting China’s ability to fully circumvent U.S. tariffs, simultaneously highlighting the need to deepen direct ties with regional partners.
Despite these opportunities, opportunities for trilateral cooperation face considerable challenges. Intra-ASEAN trade remains relatively low, limiting the bloc’s capacity for deeper regional economic integration. The GCC is navigating internal economic transitions, including diversifying away from oil dependency amid uncertain global energy markets. China is managing its own economic rebalancing, with slower growth and mounting debt potentially constraining its external economic initiatives. These divergent economic conditions complicate efforts to synchronize policies and foster cohesive growth across the three regions.
Trade integration also presents difficulties. Although ASEAN and China have maintained a free-trade agreement since 2002, the GCC has yet to formalize FTAs with either party. Negotiations between the GCC and key ASEAN economies like Indonesia and Malaysia are underway but may take years to conclude. Similarly, talks between the GCC and China, initiated in 2004, have repeatedly stalled. At the same time, competition between the two in sectors such as aluminum further complicates efforts to lower trade barriers, as domestic industries seek protection from subsidized foreign competition.
The durability of this trilateral model will depend on how effectively the three regions can navigate rising geopolitical tensions, including the future direction of U.S. foreign policy. A second Trump administration, with its history of economic nationalism, could catalyze even deeper cooperation among the trio as they seek to safeguard their development strategies and shield themselves from tariff volatility or strategic exclusion.
Conclusion
The 2025 ASEAN-GCC-China Summit may well come to be seen as the beginning of a new phase in global diplomacy. In contrast to traditional Western-centric alliances, this trilateral initiative is anchored in economic complementarity, regional interdependence, and a shared desire for multipolar balance. With over two billion people and a significant share of global GDP growth, the bloc is poised to play a central role in the evolution of international cooperation and South-South cooperation.
